OpenRCT2-Measuring-Tape

Tired of counting tiles and finding perfect centres on your OpenRCT2 map?

Measuring Tape plugin is here to give you hand!

Single player

Multiplayer

Jump to…

• User Manual
• Thanks to…
• Building from source
• Contact the author

What's new?

Have a look at the changelog.md - it comes with gifs and screenshots

Features

Measure length

Measure area

Stacking and undo-able history of measurements

Find centre of map and map edges, stamp numbers on the map

Configure objects used - simply

Configure objects used - professional mode, to detail

And more...

User Manual

Table of contents

Main window
Extra tools
Configure window
Multiplayer

General

OpenRCT2-Measuring-Tape is a plugin for OpenRCT2. This plugin supports multiplayer. Generally it can be used to measure distance or area on map, find center point between two points, or centre of area, as well. The plugin works not only by measuring, but as well it denotes measured values on the map graphically by placing "ghosts" - scenery objects with ghost flag on. Ghosts are by their nature not save-able, saving and reopening the park will make them perish. In multiplayer, the ghosts projected on the map are visible for all players and players that have "Scenery" permission are able to place them or remove them. In multiplayer, it is possible to remove ghosts placed by other players, as well obliterate all the ghost of all the players from the map.

.

.

Main window

The main window consists of seven main sections.

Measurement output area

Topmost, there is area showing "Click and drag" by default, otherwise it shows result of measurement.

Mode

There is a choice of two modes (tools) to choose from:

• Tape mode works in one map tile wide tape, best suits for measuring distances. It is the default tool mode as well and hence is automatically active on plugin opening. To use it, utilize your pointing device (usually mouse), press button, hold and move the cursor over the map. You can click the already pressed button to cancel the tool mode, or press ESC key.
• Area mode works as rectangle, measurement is shown for both sides.

  Show

  This section control whether the ghosts will be shown for your measurement. The buttons are on/off switches. It is possible to have both on, as well as select only one or disable both. If both buttons are disabled a white gird will remain projected on the map to show your measurement. For multiplayer, you must posses scenery permissions, otherwise ghost displaying will not work and these buttons will have no effect.

• Show the ends The button is on/off switch, setting whether your current measurement will have ghosts displayed at it's ends. Ghosts are selectable under Configuration.
• Show the centre The button is on/off switch, setting whether your current measurement will have ghosts displayed at it's centre. Ghosts are selectable as well.

  Sets

  The ghost sets work as memory to remember where you placed the ghosts. It is possible to use sets to keep visual track of all your measurements or to use them as the a guidelines.

  Lock buttons

• Lock one The button is on/off switch exclusive with Lock all button - you can not have Lock one and Lock all at one time - but you can disable both of them. Lock one keeps the last measurement ghost set. When it's off and Lock all is off as well, the ghosts are to disappear immediately after releasing pointer button (usually left mouse button)
• Lock all Setting this will make all your measurements stay on map in form of ghosts, which (them) you can utilize as guidelines.

  Remove buttons

• Remove last set Removes lastly placed set
• Remove all sets Removes all the sets you have placed. In multiplayer, this doesn't affect ghosts placed by other players.

  Tiles

  Tiles tools work with ghosts based on their position, contrary to Sets buttons operating on order of placement basis

• Erase ghosts from one tile Using pointer device (usually mouse) select a single tile to remove ghosts from - all ghosts on the given tile will be removed. In multiplayer, this action affects all ghosts on chosen tile, no matter who placed them.
• Erase ghosts in given area Using pointer device (usually mouse) select a area to remove ghosts from. In multiplayer, this action affects all ghosts in given area, no matter who placed them.
• Nuke tool (obliterate all ghosts) Prompts a window with warning message asking to confirm, after selecting yes, removes all ghosts from the map. Primarily this function is for multiplayer, but is useable in single-player as well.

  Extras

  Buttons in this section always open a new window.

• Configure
• About & Help
• Extra tools

Extra tools window

Extra tools windows offer two sections: Extra tools that work with map as a whole, without need of using pointer device (usually mouse) to designate area on the map. And Rubber stamper that allows to place "stamps" formed from ghosts in the shape of the arabic numerals. Arabic numerals on the Wikipedia 🔗

.

.

.

.

Extra tools

• Bisect map edges Finds a centre of each map edge. This is can be useful for placing the entrance in perfect centre of map edge. Logic for displaying the-s ghosts is the same as with measuring tape tool. A ghost placed on a tile denotes the centre lies on tile (default block), whether a ghost placed on the edge of the tile (default a wall) signals the centre point lies on the edge.
• Find map centre Finds the centre of the map.

Rubber stamp

When using rubber stamp, the "Lock all" mode is automatically engaged to allow multiple placement of stamps.

• - Numbers Selects the number you wish to place

• Rotate Turns selected number stamp 90 angular degrees counter-clockwise

Configure

The configure window serves to select objects that are used as the ghosts there after for your measurements. You can select from all objects of applicable type - either wall or small scenery, that are currently loaded in park you are playing.

Your selection is automatically saved with the park save file. You can also opt to save your personal profile as game-wide settings, which once saved, Measuring Tape will try to utilize personal settings at first on newly opened parks (otherwise it will use selection saved with the park) - if your personal selection can not be satisfied with objects in any park you open, the plugin will auto fallback to plugin defaults, if that is possible, otherwise it will just select first object of each applicable type.

Top right: Personal profile & Professional mode

Save all as default

Saves your current object choice into "shared plugin storage".

Load all defaults

Loads your previously saved object choice from "shared plugin storage"

.

Load plugin defaults

Loads hard-coded defaults

More setting options

When enabled, the left box will have more options, where you can (for example) set different ghosts for each of tape ends.

Multiplayer

Overview

Measuring Tape can be used in multiplayer and must be installed on server in order to be used in multiplayer game. The plugin automatically detects whether is run with server or client. Sever-side part of plugin works as data persistency, storing all issued ghosts regardless of their creator. Once a client connects to server, all present ghosts will be seamlessly synchronized to client. (Kindly bear in mind that ghosts don't get saved or transferred with the map, the plugin does it on its own)

Permissions

For to place or remove the ghosts, a player must have "Scenery" permission. Without restriction, any player can see all the ghosts as it were ordinary scenery on the map. A player without "Scenery" permission can still use the tools of the plugin, read measurements from the plugin window, but will be unable to set or remove any existing ghosts, while being continuously slapped in the face with a warning message.

Headless server

The plugin is able to be run headless. If you want your players to be able to utilize the Measuring Tape on your headless server, it must be installed on your server.

Building from source

Note there are two branches kept for this project, main is held at current release, while dev is moving on. To roll-up, kindly follow instruction from https://github.com/Basssiiie/OpenRCT2-Simple-Typescript-Template - with small spice: before npm run build:dev run node rebuildPngToBase64.js, as base64 version of images used on buttons is then rolled up in plugin.

Visual Studio Code users can clone this repository in editor and use Terminal -> Run task... menu options (including downloading openrct2.d.ts into lib directory and running rebuildPngToBase64.js)

Contact the author

Bug reports, feature ideas or requests, any kind of collaboration - I am open-minded to chat about anything: contact me via GitHub - you can make an Issue, or catch me via OpenRCT2 discord #plugin (or direct message)

Thanks to

• Basssiiie, Sadret - this plugin makes use of parts of their works, in the spirit of a open source
• Everyone on OpenRCT2 and DKMP discord servers, for creating such a nice and welcoming community!